Letters of inspiration: Fourth-grader Grady Dominick sends notes, meets favorite Avon players

Fourth-grader Grady Dominick wanted to touch base with and praise his favorite high school football players. He ended up inspiring them. It started with a simple note to Avon senior running back Desmond Kelley, a note written in the early morning hours while Dominick waited for the school bus to take him to Heritage Elementary School. He wrote the note with the intention of giving it, along with a bead necklace, to his school's custodian, Chuck Cummings, to deliver to Kelley at practice. "He gets on a pretty early bus so it's normally just Grady and I up in the morning," said Grady's mother, Karissa Dominick. "One morning when he was heading downstairs I saw that he had something in his hand, and I could tell he was trying to hide it from me. "I asked him what he had and after a couple of minutes he told me he had a note to give to 'Mr. Chuck.' He's one of the custodians, but I assume he helps out with the team because he's on the sidelines during the games. "I helped him put it in an envelope because he had also made Desmond a black beaded necklace he stuck in with the note. He took the note to Mr. Chuck, and he gave it to Desmond before the Highland game." Cummings has been Avon's "get back" sidelines coach for 14 years. He is responsible for making sure the players on the sidelines do not venture too close to the field during the game. The note Cummings delivered to Kelley was much-appreciated. "It made me feel really special," Kelley said. "When I'm out there on Friday, I think about playing for my community and giving everything I've got. It fired me up to play even better because I know there are little kids that are looking up to me. The kids aren't there this year in the stands, but they're cheering us on and that means the world to me. When I got that letter, before the game I had a big smile on my face. It was special." Things could have ended there, but Kelley wanted to make sure his young fan understood how much he appreciated the note and necklace. He wrote a note back to Grady to thank him and when a Grady-penned note appeared for quarterback Niko Pappas later that week, both players wanted to meet the young player who had reached out to them. They found out Dominick was actually a quarterback on his fourth-grade youth team, and decided to pay him a visit. "Those two asked me last Saturday if they could go watch his last football game because they found out when he was playing," Avon coach Mike Elder said. "The two of them actually went to the game and watched him play his youth football game." Kelley said he wanted to make sure Dominick knew how thankful he was for the note. "It was very important to me to go see him," Kelley said. "He probably thought I saw it, but I had to let him know I really appreciated it from the bottom of my heart. I had to go see him in person so I could meet the kid that called me 'swoll.' "I know if I was in his position I would want my favorite athlete to come see me, too." He also wanted to impart some wisdom to the young man. "He thanked me for the note and told me to keep working hard," Dominick said. "He told me if I kept working hard, kept my feet moving forward and kept my head up that I would be successful." Elder was especially proud of how Kelley, with Pappas, gave back to the young player. "This kid reached out to him and he could have been the kind of kid that threw the letter away, said, 'Oh, that's nice,' and moved on," Elder said. "Desmond was looking for ways to reach out to the kid and go spend time with him and get to know him better. I thought that was really cool." Dominick's mother, who was the starting point guard on a Karns City basketball team that won a Pennsylvania state championship in 2000, knows how a high school player can have a positive effect on a young kid. "Playing sports myself when I was younger I remember how we always looked up to the older kids in school," she said. "You realize how that impacts the kids. It was really thoughtful and shows how involved they are with the youth program. "Unfortunately, Coach Elder hasn't been able to do as much with the younger kids in the school buildings this year. In the past he would always take the players around on Fridays and they would read with the kids and do a lot of other activities. "They haven't been able to do that this year and I thought it was pretty awesome they were able to come to (Grady's) game to watch them play. The kids were really excited about that." "I wrote to them because they are very inspiring," Grady added. "They are leaders on the team and hard workers. It felt really good to see them because it really meant something to me." Kelley ended up scoring on a 10-yard touchdown run in the Highland game, giving Grady what he had asked for in his letter. "I kid you not, when I scored that touchdown I stood up and said, 'I did it for him,'" Kelley said. "I turned to Niko and said, 'I did it for him.' It was basically like a challenge and I love challenges. He told me to score a touchdown and I was like, 'I am going to get a touchdown.' "They were going to have to drag me out of the game to not get a touchdown." Contact Mike Perry at 329-7135 or macsportstalk@gmail.com.